The Unchained Supply

Slaves supply us with many of the things we buy. But we offer the world’s largest multidisciplinary research programme on slavery in supply chains. Our programme consists of four main areas: detecting modern slavery and human rights violations in supply chains; changing supply chain design to reduce modern slavery and human rights violations; diffusing responsible practices in complex supply chain networks; and engaging closely with industry as the key change mechanism.

For example, we offer a step change by factoring in slavery to supply chain design from the outset. We are establishing a typology of supply chain structures from an ethical performance perspective, simulating the impact of structural changes, investigating the tipping point for designers, and establishing what level of risk will prompt design amendments.

Our research proposes a democratisation of supply chains, connecting the individual actors. Availability of information enables practitioners to make ethically informed decisions and allows accountability in the supply chain. We are designing an extension of quality management tools to ethical compliance and creating simulations that can forecast the impact of potential changes.